


a hate letter to richard hendricks

by lohoron



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Hurt Jared, M/M, Suicide, aftermath of suicide, im sorry this is so sad, richard is... very troubled, young silicon valley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26075638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lohoron/pseuds/lohoron
Summary: a high school aurichard's suicide has left jared in pieces.
Relationships: Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	a hate letter to richard hendricks

**Author's Note:**

> tw: suicide, depression
> 
> stay safe, ily <3

jared was awoken from his sleep on august 28th, 2005 at 3:38 a.m.

his foster mother wouldn't tell him what was going on. she only insisted that everything was okay. she lay in bed with him and pet his hair and jared had no clue what was happening but it was calming enough to get him to sleep again.

he woke up again at 6:15 a.m., nokia 1100 buzzing next to him.

"euughh," he whines, stretching his arm out to reach for the device on his nightstand. a dozen texts at least. four from richard (or... "richard <3" in his phone contacts). the rest from dinesh and gilfoyle and some girl from his biology class. he rubs his eyes, opening richard's messages.

his breath caught in his throat when he read the first line.

_jared, if you're reading this, i'm probably not alive anymore_

his heart thumped out of his chest, hands shaking as he kept reading.

_i don't think i can do this anymore. any of it. it feels so silly to type but i don't want... to be alive anymore. the reasons are maybe too obscene and scary for you to read, so i'll spare you the details, but you deserve an explanation more than anybody does. before i met you, i was a lot worse. well... maybe not worse than this moment but i was generally a lot worse. i think meeting you gave me two extra year of life and i'm glad that i could at least have that. thank you for being my best friend and my... boyfriend? i don't know. i guess it doesn't matter if i say that because i'll never know your opinion on the topic. but i think we're boyfriends, right? we kiss and hold hands and go on dates... boyfriends do that._

_i don't want this to be morbid. i wanna tell you some of my favorite memories of us two because maybe it'll make you hate me less for leaving you alone. i'm really sorry that i'm leaving you alone. i remember when i first saw you in creative writing. you'd just moved and you were edgy and kinda intimidating-looking, haha. you crossed your arms across your chest when mr. belinger asked you a question and you shrugged and i remember thinking you were a prick ;-). and then big head and i decided to approach you and you were so nice and quiet and you looked so sad and i understood why you looked like a prick (the same reason why i looked like a retard all the time). and then we started talking about books and movies and video games and i remember our first time hanging out going from 3 pm until 3 in the morning and it was really special to me. thank you for giving me special moments and special feelings. you're the first to have sort of gotten all the way in there and seen me cry and seen me hurl. you understand me in a way that i didn't think anybody ever would._

_when we first kissed on the swings outside of holicong park, i remember the butterflies in my stomach. haha. my hands were shaky and clammy and fuck it was so perfect, jared. i went home that night and didn't self harm for the first time in weeks. i don't think i ever told you that. i wish i hadn't run off, but kissing a boy was really scary for me. i know it was for you, too. and when we went to school the next day, i like that we didn't pretend that it never happened. i like that we skipped gym class to talk about how strange our feelings for each other were. i like that i kissed you again and you kissed back and i remember feeling like being sad wasn't that big of a deal anymore because now i had you. and you're a million times better than anything i'd ever owned or seen or touched in my life. i remember when we went to my place and my sister was gone and my parents were gone and we watched movies while cuddling and holding hands and i thought it was so exciting. i love you, jared. this isn't fair to you. i'm sorry. i am so fucking sorry._

_i told you i loved you on your seventeenth birthday. i was so anxious for you to open my present and see the golden words on your birthday card but when you said them back to me that night during the group sleepover, i genuinely had a heart attack. you mean everything to me. without you, i don't know if i have anything at all. and i don't think that's good. but i can't help it. everything was so broken before you, and i can't help but feel bad for forcing you to put up with all my shit all the time. so, i'm ending all my shit forever. you won't have to hold me while i cry and throw up. you won't have to listen to me whine about feeling helpless. you won't have to worry about my stubbornness and constant anxiety and everything else that has damaged you over these years. i love you. i love you. don't miss me too much. you have so much going for you. take care of yourself and stay exactly who you are, because you're truly the only perfect person on planet earth. goodbye, my sweet jared. i'm always in your heart._

jared's anxiety attack feels life-ending.

reading the text messages in which richard, _his richard,_ says that he's killing himself, is not his usual light morning reading. scanning his worried eyes over the paragraphs to search for anything that will make any of this fucking make sense, god dammit. it feels impossible. a dream. it's a dream, right? a horrible fucking nightmare. or richard is pulling some sick prank. this can't be real.

his chest heaves and his fingers cramp, legs curled into his arms. the tears streaming down his face feel like they're never going to leave and all jared wants is to fucking hit richard on the fucking head because _how fucking dare he?_

"i need him, i need him, ineedhimineedhim," jared whimpers, his tears falling against his white cotton shirt. _how could he do this to me? how could he leave me alone like this? i don't want to believe it. i can't believe it. oh my god. oh my god._

the next thing he knows, he's in the hospital. 

richard is hooked up to some stupid fucking machines and he's grey and there's a motherfucking tube down his throat and jared can't stay in the room for more than ten seconds because it would just make it all much too real. 

a coma, they said. that his overdose put him in a coma instead of killing him, rendering him nearly brain-dead. jared is sick to his stomach. 

dinesh and gilfoyle hold a crying jared in the men's bathroom, tears secretly dripping down their cheeks, as well. richard hendricks is dead. richard hendricks will never be with them again to talk to, or to vent to, or to scream to, or to hurt, or to make laugh, or to prank, or to kiss, or to hold, or to just fucking _see_. 

jared is angry and sad and can feel the bloody patches of missing skin in his arms where he's been scratching so, so hard. digging his nails, screaming, "it's not real! he's not gone!" 

the panic on gilfoyle's face is new and feels almost fake. but he can't help it when he's looking at his broken best friend crying on the floor because he's lost his fucking soulmate. forever. no choice, no chance, no fucking flexibility. and it seems like something that shouldn't be happening to him. or any of them. their friend -- who they were _just_ arguing about quantum theory with -- is actually, genuinely _gone_.

"it's gonna be okay," dinesh offers up, his voice small and unsure. none of them believe it, and they don't really have to.

because it's about having each other right now. it's about walking back inside of that fucking hospital room and squeezing richard's hand and reading him an obscure biography that jared had been reading for the past couple of days. it's about letting every one of them cry as they say their goodbyes because the doctor is pulling the fucking plug on seventeen-year-old richard hendricks. zero chances of survival without imminent brain failure. 

it almost makes jared smile. richard would've hated brain failure. 

but he's angry all too quickly again, watching the heart monitor flatline with his hand in front of his mouth, tears a permanent accessory on his pale face. he watches as they cart him away and he watches as richard's mom stares numbly at her dead son's body. 

no way, no way, no way, no way.

it all hurts too much. jared just wants to shed his skin and turn back time and create a different timeline where richard lives for a million years, like he deserves. jared wants to stop richard from taking all those pills. from writing that fucking text. he wants it all to end. wants it all to be some fucked up dream.

and so, jared goes on with the rest of his day pretending that it was.

he sits in his bed and texts richard's number, tears dry on his rosy cheeks. 

_I love you. See you tomorrow._


End file.
